There is a story in the Fargo Forum about a guy that was nailed for poaching a deer in MN. It was apparently some sort of record, and as such it has received intense scrutiny. I know what your thinking “don’t the authorities have better things to do…” actually, in cases like this…they really don’t. The people investigating this are people that are either paid or volunteer for these purposes. They keep the records, make sure they are legit and over see hunting/fishing regulations. If they weren’t doing this, they would be playing Cabela’s “big game hunter” on wii…or something.
It is clear from this article that the guy who bagged this buck was a complete dipshit. It takes a special kind of moron to get caught poaching like this. I could see shooting after hours and a game warden driving up to where s/he heard the shot…not a whole lot you can do about that (other than not do it I suppose), but to knock down a big one and try to claim the record…after you cheated? What the hell kind of person does that? How can a record you had to cheat to win mean anything to you? I can understand how a professional athlete cheats to hit certain marks, there is a huge financial reward…but a regular guy with a deer? There is probably some money to be made on trade marks and replication mounts…but it can’t be that much
If you are going to take a couple extra during season and you are going to completely use all the meat from the animal, I see absolutely nothing wrong with that at all. I don’t see why I need to be “taxed” to shoot an animal that is roaming free on private land. The government is not providing a value added service with their attempts to manage the game, there is no reason they should profit off of something they really don’t do anything with. For the entire season, I don’t believe there was a game warden around the area I hunt. In the past 20 years, I’ve only seen a game warden in that area 1 time.
People need to use their head when they are poaching. First and foremost, if you shoot it out side of the rules…you’ve cheated. Don’t be submitting it to the record books, if you want to get it mounted for your own viewing…fine. Don’t be dumb enough to think you can outsmart the scientists, you can’t. From the trama inflicted to the hide these very smart people can figure out what type of weapon the animal was shot with. They will be able to ballpark age the animal back to the point it died. Just don’t try it. Shooting for bragging rights makes you a piss poor fuckin hunter in the first place…but that’s a topic for another time.